After Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the set design for gameshows has gotten
fancier and flashier, but the questions have gotten steadily dumber. Take for
instance The Wheel, if it still streams on Peacock after NBC canceled
it. This one has all the sweeping spotlights, but the questions are a little
different. An ability to recognize patterns will help you quite a bit if you
are a contestant on the new American adaptation of creators Andy Auerbach &
Dean Nabarro’s The 1% Club, which premieres Thursday on Prime Video,
before later airing on Fox, starting June 3rd.
Charles
Van Doren had his issues, but he was a learned man, so it would be interesting
to see him compete on a show like this. The set-up ought to outrage all those
critics of The Bell Curve, because it presupposes a distribution of intelligence,
but, of course, it makes no demographic assumptions therein. 100 contestants
are given $1,000 to risk on a series of questions. According to statistical
surveys, 90% of Americans answer the first question correctly. The next
question should have an 80% success rate, steadily diminishing down to the
titular 1%, for a share of a pot that could potentially be as large as $100,000.
These
are not trivia questions or applied mathematics. There might be a bit of
reading comprehension involved in early questions, but most depend on logic and
the analysis of sequences. You could well be smarter than the participants, but
you really have to watch. If you merely half-listen while multi-tasking, you
will not see the sequences or spatial relationships the problems refer to.
This
is somewhat different concept for a gameshow that clearly worked quite well in
the UK, where the franchise originated, before spawning international editions
in Australia, Israel, Germany, France, and now the USA (with future editions
coming soon to Ukraine and several other nations). Evidently, there is an app that
will allow viewers to play along. Yet, it doesn’t seem like it would be as fun to
watch with others as Fox’s The Floor, which probably had most of its
viewers blurting out answers as soon the images flashed across the screen.
When it comes to reliability, Japanese demons put the U.S. Postal Service to shame.
When you mail something, there is maybe a 50% chance it will reach its
destination (at least judging by recent experience). However, a grieving
letter-carrier Jill Hill keeps receiving an ominous supernatural letter, over
and over again, until she finally succumbs to temptation in Jean-Pierre
Chapoteau’s The Despaired, which is now streaming on BET Plus.
Several
years have passed since Hill’s husband Wayne was fatally shot, but rather than recovering,
she steadily sinks further into despair. Frankly, her now-teenaged son
struggles to engage with her. Of course, this makes her a prime target for the
ancient Japanese entity repeatedly sending her an evil “to the Despaired” form
letter.
Inside,
are instructions for bringing someone back from the dead. Naturally, Hill was
not paying very close attention to the fine print, so her newly returned
husband explains she will need to deliver four souls quickly, or he will go back
downstairs to his eternal torment. This might sound like a demon impersonating
Hill, but it turns out her husband was no boy scout. Perhaps his murder was not
so random either. Regardless, Hill tries to comply, searching for the “marked”
souls, who are destined for the same place her husband just left.
Admittedly,
The Despaired is a low-budget b-grade horror movie, but the way it
addresses big archetypal themes, like bereavement, temptation, and damnation,
still resonates to a surprising extent. Both the “human” and demonic elements
are rather unsettling. However, the subplot supposedly explaining the
mysterious Coco’s involvement with the Hill murder comes off like a forced afterthought.
The
Despaired also
makes a career in the Postal Service look profoundly dismal. In fact, the
entire setting looks economically depressed and relentlessly gloomy. This is a
very fatalistic film, but in a way that distinguishes it from a lot of other
mindlessly nihilistic horror flicks.
THE BIG CIGAR has a fantastic soundtrack, but it lacks both historical perspective and a sense of irony. CINEMA DAILY US exclusive review up here.
Even though Hong Sang-soo is a film director, he seems to believe actors are the
dullest people in the world. Once again, he apparently sets out to prove it
with his latest film. Supposedly, this is a film about coincidence, but the not
so ironic happenstances are weak and tangential in Hong’s In Our Day,
which is now playing in New York.
Sang-won
is an actress, who is crashing with her friend Jung-soo and Jung-soo’s cat Us, now
that she has returned to Korea after a long absence. Hong Uiju is a poet who
lives alone, since the death of his cat. That is really a shame for the poet
and the audience, because Us is probably the most interesting character in the
film.
Today,
both will be visited by aspiring thesps, who supposedly want to ask them big
meaningful questions. However, when Ji-soo and Jae-won try to get out the
words, they sound pretentious and inarticulate. Sang-won and Uiju also eat ramen
with red chili paste. Yes, that is a big deal in this film. Perhaps you can
understand why Us eventually runs away from home.
Maybe
Hong was trying to recapture the inspiration of his best films, Hill of Freedom, Yourself and Yours, and Right Now, Wrong Then, which
slyly riffed on doubling motifs, while employing hip bifurcated structures. If
so, he was really forcing it. Unfortunately, his shallow and annoying characters
need even more work than the skeletal narrative.
Frankly,
In Our Day feels more like an improv workshop than a proper film.
Perhaps the only memorable dialogue comes when Sang-won explains to her cousin
Ji-soo how she never felt she ever gave an honest performance, because she knew
her directors always wanted a predictably safe canned response. Kim Min-hee (often
referred to as Hong’s “muse”) delivers this pseudo-monologue with such earnestness,
perhaps it should tell the director something.
TAKING VENICE chronicles some fascinating Cold War history, but it doesn't do the now-defunct USIA agency justice. Ironically, the doc shows how the USIA could promote American values through art and culture, when it recruited the right people. Frankly, we need an agency like the USIA leveraging "soft power" today, as we face militaery-geopolitical threats from China and Russia. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
A sheriff must be pretty bad if his electorate votes to recall him
mid-term. In this case, it left two very junior deputies responding to calls on
their own. Maybe that would not be so bad on average days, but Miranda is
definitely not having a typical.day. A psycho is chasing her through the woods,
killing anyone who crosses his path in Michelle Schumacher’s You Can’t Run
Forever, which opens today in New York.
Viewers
will get more details later, but Wade Bennett was always pretty jerky, so when
he gets triggered, he sets off on a killing spree—and he hasn’t stopped yet. He
follows Miranda and her stepdad Eddie from a rest-stop, killing him and chasing
her into the forest.
To
make matters worse, Miranda was already fragile. She never really recovered
from finding her father’s body, after he committed suicide. However, she
harbors no anger towards Eddie or her half sister Emily. They were both trying
help her heel, but they are understandably distracted by her mother Jenny’s
pregnancy. Eventually, Miranda manages to get a message to her mother, but it
is all too clear Deputy Morgan and Deputy Dwyer are out of their depths,
especially the latter. To be fair, they are also quite busy dealing with all
the dead bodies Bennett leaves in his wake.
It
should be noted Bennett did not intend to hunt Miranda for sport. He simply
wants to kill her, even after she runs into the woods. This is not yet another Most
Dangerous Game. Instead, it is another stalker movie, very much in the
tradition of Paronnaud’s Hunted.
There
are a lot of contrivances in Run Forever and some serious credibility
issues. Bennett is older than I am, but somehow, he can cover vast distances in
the blink of an eye. Admittedly, he is considerably more onery too. Yet, the
film works to a surprising extent, because we genuinely care about the family in
jeopardy. Schumacher and co-screenwriter Carolyn Carpenter exercise good
judgment and wise restraint by not introducing an exploitative abuse subplot. To
the contrary, Eddie is a good stepfather, who dies trying to protect Miranda.
Consequently, his death has tragic resonance that makes viewers care, perhaps
even in spite of themselves.
Schumacher
also has J.K. Simmons growling and swaggering his way through the picture as
Bennett. He still isn’t as scary as he was in Whiplash, but he is still seriously
sinister. In fact, Schumacher has Simmons in real-life too, since they are
married.
All the alleged sins of the capitalist system were committed by the socialist
Soviets when they constructed the V. I. Lenin Power Station, a.k.a. Chernobyl.
Cut-rate materials were used, because of budget cuts. They did not even bother
building containment domes, because safety was a secondary concern (if that). As
a result, the project came in under budget and ahead of schedule, so it looked
like a “win,” at least for a while. Then when disaster literally struck, the government
tried to cover it up, regardless of the danger to average citizens. Readers take
a deep dive into the worst nuclear disaster of all-time in Matyas Namai’s
graphic novel (or graphic history) Chernobyl: The Fall of Atomgrad,
which is now on-sale.
Many
people do not realize the Soviet Union also covered up what is now considered
the third worst nuclear disaster ever at the Mayak Combine in 1957, but the
rest of world did not hear about it until two decades later. Unlike other
accounts of the mismanagement at Pripyak (dubbed “Atomgrad”), Namai spends a
good deal of time on the construction, explaining how politics and propaganda
demands trumped safety. In retrospect, having the same people responsible for
agricultural collectives that produced famine shift to constructing nuclear
power facilities sounds like a profoundly dangerous proposition.
Once
again, nuclear scientist Valery Legasov and Party boss Boris Shcherbina play active
roles in the response, but Namai casts them in a far less heroic light than the
HBO miniseries. The cover-up is thoroughly documented, fully implicating Gorbachev
himself. At every step, it was the average Ukrainians living in Pripyat and the
surrounding areas who suffered the most.
Namai
provides a detailed and methodical explanation of what happened at every step.
It is a damning indictment of a government that valued ideology above all else.
There can be no doubt after reading The Fall of Atomgrad that socialism
kills.
Even
though many historical figures appear (almost always unflatteringly) in Namai’s
narrative, they are rarely developed as characters per se. Namai’s Chernobyl
is text-heavy, but it does not read like a novel. Yet, it is still a gripping
page-turner, in the grimmest way possible.
What do you do if you survive a killer clown? Try to survive the sequel. Hopefully,
that worked for Jenna Kanell, the star of Terrifier 1 and 2.
However, her fictional alter-ego is not doing so well in this film. Bowie
Davidson has a limited amount of [toxic] fandom from a cult clown-slasher, but
she cannot figure out a second act until inspiration comes stalking her in Raymond
Wood’s Faceless After Dark, which releases tomorrow on VOD.
Lately,
the only work Davidson gets are convention appearances, where she signs autographs
for cretinous fans. (Kanell co-wrote the screenplay, so you should consider
skipping her line at the next ComicCon.) Fortunately, she need not worry about
making ends meet, thanks to her lover, Jessica, a vastly more popular thesp. In
fact, Jessica just booked a superhero movie in Europe, leaving Davidson alone
in their Hollywood Hills home. Like clockwork, an incel stalker fan wearing a
clown mask invades their home, but Davidson is in better shape and she is more
comfortable wielding her old horror props.
Her
“friend” Ryan, who just let his financial backers drop Davidson from his long
gestating film, advised her to work on her own thing and write what she knows—so
she does exactly that. Essentially, Faceless After Dark follows the
template of Stacy Title’s The Last Supper, but without any of the wit or
insight. Whereas the under-heralded 1995 film brilliantly depicted a group of
left-wingers sliding down a slippery slope, with each of their murdered
right-wingers becoming less defensible and more horrifying, Faceless is
just Twitter-dopamine torture porn for the extreme left.
Serial killers are beyond reform or redemption—but that’s a good thing for
movie producers. When a serial killer film is successful, they can always make
a sequel, even in Denmark. If you haven’t seen the original Nightwatch or
the American remake (both helmed by Ole Bornedal), forget the name Peter
Wormer. It seemed Martin Bork and Kalinka Martens survived the killer at the
end of the 1994 film, but they never escaped the post-traumatic stress.
Unfortunately, Wormer also survived, so he most likely returns to his old ways
in Bornedal’s Nightwatch: Demons are Forever, which premieres Friday on Shudder.
Despite
the promise of a happy marriage, Martens was paranoid Wormer would return for
her and Bork, she took her own life several years ago. Maybe in a future
sequel, we will learn she was really murdered, but Bornedal does go there yet.
Consequently, Bork has been a pill-popping shell of himself, who is largely
dependent on his college student daughter Emma (played by the director’s
daughter, Fanny Leander Bornedal), rather than vice versa.
Obviously,
it is an extraordinarily bad idea, but Emma takes the same night watchman job
at the morgue where her father worked in the first film. Her parents never told
her about the incident with Wormer, so Emma hopes to learn more at the infamous
site. However, her family investigation quickly leads her to the state mental
hospital, where the blind and supposedly feeble Wormer remains in custody. Her
inquiry takes on great urgency when a copycat killer starts gruesomely butchering
Bork’s old friends, using Wormer’s old scalping M.O.
Fans
of the original will be happy to see Bornedal got the old gang back together again—at
least the characters who are still living, including Bork’s somewhat sleazy
pal, Jens Arnkiel. The original Nightwatch was a breakout film for both the
director and lead actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, so it makes sense Bornedal’s
screenplay explores the notion of legacy. Instead of just bringing back the
old-timers for fan-mollifying cameos, Demons are Forever digs deeply
into the long-term psychological distress experienced by the survivors and how
it shaped their offspring—including Wormer’s (just who that might be would be
telling, but it is easy to guess).
There is most assuredly a heated rivalry between Naval aviators and Air Force
pilots, but when it comes to recognition and popularity, the Navy’s aerobatic
flight squadron, the Blue Angels have the overwhelming advantage over their Air
Force counterparts, the Thunderbirds. Those blue planes with the yellow trim
are just so cool looking. Yet, their sporty paint jobs serve a practical
purpose, because the yellow wing-tips should line-up when the Angels are flying
in the classic diamond formation. Getting the squadron to that point takes a
lot of work, as viewers see in Paul Crowder’s documentary, The Blue Angels,
which opens this Friday on IMAX screens (before releasing on Prime Video the
following Thursday).
There
have been Blue Angels films before (including one written by Frank Herbert),
but this was the first time civilian camera planes were allowed inside their
flight performance “box.” The aerial camera team previously shot Top Gun: Maverick, so they had credibility. (Plus, Maverick co-star Glen
Powell, who also appeared in Devotion, signed on as an executive
producer.) The Blue Angels are even more selective than the Top Gun school at
Miramar, but pilots only serve one three-year tour (although some have been
brought back), so new team-members come into the squadron every year. As the
documentary opens, Captain Brian Kesserling (“Boss”) and the rest of the Angels
help train new right wingman Christopher Kapuschansky the formations and flight
plans that make up the Blue Angels’ exhibition shows.
Crowder
does a fantastic job explaining each pilots’ role in the formation. Kesserling
(#1) and the second senior pilot, Major Frank Zastoupil (#4) fly in the front
and back slots of the diamond, while #2 and #3 fly the wings. Meanwhile, #5 and
#6 are considered “soloists,” but they also perform the spectacularly close
passes, before joining with the diamond formation to form a delta.
You
can get a decent layman’s understand of the Blue Angels’ routines, but the real
attraction of the film are the gorgeous aerial shots. Aerial photography
directors Lance Benson and Michael FitzMaurice did some amazing work. There is
a reason why this film is on IMAX screens. Even when pilots are talking about
their training, Crowder usually shows us cool shots of the jets in action. We
also see some scenes of the pilots on the home front. These humanize the
pilots, but they are not exactly revelatory.
When John Waters shows up in a documentary about a theater, you know some
crazy films must have screened there. They programmed his movies, which
definitely qualify. The theater was also known for showing horror, martial
arts, art films, and sexploitation bordering on outright raunch. Of course, for
regulars, its seediness was part of its charm. Staff, customers, and famous
filmmakers remember the good times in Jane Giles &Ali Catterall’s
documentary, Scala!!!, which screens again during the 2024 Seattle International Film Festival.
The
Beatles filmed one of the concert scenes for A Hard Day’s Night in the
old Scala Theater. This is “new” Scala, but it has an apostolic link to the old
theater, after the original location was demolished. Changing formats a
few times, it eventually became the eccentric repertory cinema fans knew and loved, around the time it finally settled into its beloved sketchy King’s Cross neighborhood.
Frankly, many talking heads make enthusiastic comparisons to grindhouse era
Times Square, especially after the Scala started its tradition of all-night
marathon screenings.
The
programming was certainly eclectic, including high-end art-house films and
sleazy exploitation fare. Of course, budding auteurs like Christiopher Nolan were
regular patrons. Touring punk bands often crashed there, instead of renting hotel
rooms. A lot of drugs were consumed on the premises and the restrooms were a
veritable petri dishes overflowing with STDs. At least two people died there—that
the staff are willing to cop to. So yeah, good times.
Admittedly,
the wild anecdotes are often amusing. The Scala also screened some great stuff,
including Avengers episodes for the series’ fan society, as well as glorified
porn. Just about all the talking heads agree the most representative Scala film
would be Thundercrack!, a haunted house spoof with X-rated sex scenes,
written by George Kuchar.
Do you like dolphins? If so, you should despise Putin. Since the launch of
his illegal invasion, the Ukrainian wildlife reserve on the Black Sea has found
the corpses of at least 5,000 dolphins, but they estimate thousands more have
died. Clearly, animals have suffered from Russia’s military aggression, just
like the Ukrainian people. Yet, despite the chaos and danger, ordinary
Ukrainians have risked their lives to rescue animals both wild and domestic. Viewers
need to watch their brave efforts, which Anton Ptushkin documents in “Saving
the Animals of Ukraine,” premiering this Wednesday on PBS, as part of the
current season of Nature.
It
sure is funny how everyone who was so concerned about the animals in the
Baghdad Zoo have had so little to say about the animals of Ukraine. Regardless,
the entire world saw images of desperate Ukrainian refugees carrying their
beloved pet cats and dogs. As a result, at least one NGO talking head had to
dramatically rethink they way he thought about refugees. Inevitably, many pets
were still left behind, often not intentionally, but rather due to unexpected
Russian bombardments. Zoopatrol was organized to save those animals, either by
jail-breaking them outright, or noninvasively feeding them through front-door
peep-holes (this mostly works for cats).
Perhaps
their most famous rescue is Shafa, who was found by drones trapped on the
exposed ledge of a completely bombed-out seventh-floor apartment, where she had
been perched for sixty days, with minimal food or water. Despite her advanced
age, they successfully nursed Shafa back to health. Since then, she has become
an online sensation, symbolizing Ukrainian resilience in her own grumpy cat
way.
Likewise,
Patron the Jack Russell terrier has also become an international influencer,
thanks to his work sniffing out landmines. Patron’s small size gives him an
advantage over other ordinance-detecting dogs, because he is too light to
set-off mines calibrated for human weight. That little guy is a charmer.
Unfortunately,
many of the stories Ptushkin documents are profoundly sad, like the two animal
shelters that took very different approaches when evacuating their human
staffs. Tragically, both shelters were near Hostomel Airport, which Putin’s
thugs and mercenaries bombed into rubble, greatly distressing the animals in
the process. Clearly, several on-camera experts suggest one shelter handled the
challenge in a much more humane manner, but the real villain is Putin, who put
both shelters directly in harm’s way.
EAST BAY is an unusually grounded and everyday-looking film for science fiction, if it really is sf. However, the ultra-independent indie has a lot of heart and integrity. CINEMA DAILY US exclusive reivew up here. Happy Mother's Day!
Flooding is often a human tragedy, but it also poses great risks and challenges for
law enforcement. It will be all hands on deck for this fictional Yorkshire
police force, when the waters start rising—even for the mega-pregnant PC Joanna
Marshall. The newly promoted detective’s final day as a uniformed officer will
be quite eventful, when she discovers a drowned body that wasn’t really
drowned. As Marshall officially and unofficially works the case, she uncovers
corruption within the local council government in creator Mick Ford’s six-part After
the Flood, which premieres tomorrow on BritBox.
If
you only watch only one episode of After the Flood (and maybe you
should), it ought to be the first. Marshall and her soon-to-be former patrol
partner Deepa Das are literally waist deep in water flooding out a row of lower
middle class town houses. Indeed, this episode’s special effects should be a
nice appetizer for fans eagerly anticipating the extreme weather of Twisters.
From
there, they are called to the river, where a newborn infant is caught up in the
currents. Almost miraculously, a good Samaritan saves the baby, but he is swept
out of Marshall’s grasp. In the days to come, she doggedly searches for news of
the mystery hero, but Lee Ellison has his reasons for keeping a low profile.
This
disaster sure kept Marshall busy. She is also first on the scene, when a
building manager finds a body presumably drowned in an office building elevator.
Except, the CSI-equivalent determines he was bludgeoned, not drowned. Since he
has no I.D. Marshall rather rashly puts his DNA into a genealogy database, even
though that violates British privacy laws. Therefore, she panics when the DNA
matches with a sister in France, who won’t stop calling her. Marshall fears her
career as a detective will be over before it even starts, especially when Tasha
Eden arrives from France to demand answers regarding her brother, Daniel. That would
be the brother she assumed already died five years ago.
The
mystery of the not-drowned Eden holds promise, but Ford and co-writers Roanne
Bardsley and Nina Metvier are more interested in scoring political points
against the Conservative Council chair and the crooked real estate developer, Jack
Radcliffe, whose latest project supposedly acerbated the recent flooding.
Frankly, a lot of this intrigue is so predictable, it gets boring. (They also
largely gloss over the scam of Radcliffe’s bogus “green tech” development.)
As a junior high shop teacher, Mr. Birchum’s classroom concerns are binary
in nature. His students are either wearing their safety glasses or they aren’t.
Their power tools are either on or off. His students’ “lived experiences” and “their
own truths” do no make any difference. Unfortunately, that is the kind of
thinking his school’s new J.E.D.I. (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion)
officer wants to stamp out. However, the cranky wood-worker will not be quietly
cancelled out of his job in the debut episode of Adam Carolla’s new animated
series, Mr. Birchum, which premieres tomorrow on Daily Wire+.
It
is the first day of school, but Birchum and his best buddy workmate, driver’s ed
teacher Mr. Gage, are already dreading the stupidity of their students and the
school’s bureaucracy—even before they meet Karponzi, the new J.E.D.I. officer. Since
Birchum’s unwoke rep proceeds him, Karponzi is already gunning for him and the
lazy, feather-nesting Principal Bortles is not about to object.
Mr.
Birchum is a character Carolla developed early in his radio career, whom he resurrected
to serve as a zeitgeisty critic of the decaying American educational system.
There is a little bit of Archie “Silent Majority” Bunker in him and even more of
Tim Allen’s Home Improvement persona. However, Mr. Birchum is more right
than wrong and he is smarter than 99% of the people around him.
He
is also really funny. Yes, this is a Daily Wire+ series executive produced by
Ben Shapiro, but it is important to remember Carolla paid his dues touring
comedy clubs for years, before he became a leading free speech advocate and critic
of “safe spaces.” Carolla and writers Mark Hoffmeier, Byron Kavanagh, and Mike
Lynch score plenty of points against Karponzi’s rigid extremism. However, some
of the funniest gags come from traditional workplace and family sitcom
situations.
The
show’s pointed perspective just gives them more bite, as when Birchum’s
sympatico, woodworking-crazy stepdaughter Jeanie stages a protest against her
realtor mother’s desecration of a mahogany fireplace. The writers even gently
mock Birchum’s rightwing persona, when he grudgingly admits the teachers’ union
he despises probably saves his bacon.
Nevertheless,
some of the series satire is worthy of South Park, which was obviously a
source of inspiration. Arguably, J.E.D.I. is the funniest, most ruthlessly
cutting acronym since Team America’s Film Actors Guild.
Everyone who saw the film The Dry (or read the novel) knows Aaron Falk’s
teen years were difficult, before he joined the Australian Federal Police. It
turns out, they were even worse. Falk has a new case, but it brings back even
more painful memories in Robert Connolly’s Force of Nature: The Dry 2,
also adapted from a Jane Harper novel, which opens today in New York.
For
Falk, when it rains, it pours. Right about now a little drought wouldn’t sound
so bad. Instead of the dry, dusty outback, Falk and his partner Carmen Cooper
rushed to a rainy, lushly wooded national park in Victoria, where there
whistleblowing informant disappeared during an annoying team-building retreat.
Calling Alice Russell a “whistle-blower” is a bit of an understatement. Falk uncovered
evidence she embezzled from her money-laundering conglomerate of shell
companies, so he pressured her to photocopy incriminating documents for his
investigation. He really put the screws to her before she left, so now he is
feeling guilty.
Through
a twist of fate, he understands the dangers of the fictional but highly
representative Giralang Ranges. Years ago, he and his father desperately searched
those woods for his mother, when she vanished during a family camping trip. Maybe
coincidentally, the Giralangs were also home to a notorious serial killer, who
might have still been active at the time of his mother’s disappearance.
Throughout
Force of Nature, Connolly juggles three timelines, with a good deal of
dexterity. There is grown Falk searching for Russell in the present day. Three
days earlier, Russell sets off into the woods with a group of women from her
office, awkwardly led by Jill Bailey, the wife of her corrupt corporate kingpin
boss, Daniel. Falk also constantly flashes back to some twenty or thirty years
ago, revisiting his desperate search for his mother.
Connolly’s
largely faithful Falk adaptations certainly follow a thriller-like template,
but they focus just as much, or even more on the difficult circumstances that
drove the characters to take such desperate, nefarious measures. Frankly, that
approach is more successful in Force of Nature than it was for the
somewhat overhyped The Dry.
Of
course, Eric Bana is just as moody and intense reprising the role of Falk. However,
he convincingly handles Falk’s more traditionally procedural duties this time
around. He definitely looks, acts, and sounds like a Fed with a chip on his
shoulder.
Thank goodness the collective Law & Order franchise has so many
episodes. Otherwise, the Sundance Channel and MyTV might have to start
producing their own programming. Of course, the franchise has far more than 500
altogether. This is just the mother ship’s half-millennial milestone. It also
happens to be its most realistic, ripped-from-the-headlines case in quite a
while. Only five days after his release from a paltry 5-year prison sentence, a
violent sex-offender stands accused of murder in “No Good Deed,” the 500th
episode of Law & Order, which premieres tonight on NBC.
Jack
McCoy is gone, but certainly not forgotten. Nicholas Baxter, the new District
Atorney, faces a hotly contested “re-election” campaign, so he is eager to
convict Shawn Payne for the brutal murder and desecration of his social worker,
Angela Hart. Although Dets. Riley and Shaw gave a look to her hot-tempered
boyfriend, they quickly zeroed-in on Payne.
Given
the brutality of the case and the intense media attention, Baxter wants a
decisive conviction. Frankly, he is a little baffled why his inherited passive
aggressive Executive ADA Nolan Price agreed to such a lenient plea-bargain. Of
course, as far as Price is concerned, it was a miracle they prosecuted him at
all (he must have served under Bragg too). He also claims he wanted to spare
his surviving victim the further trauma of a trial. Yet, there is no denying
the new murder victim.
Frankly,
#500 is exactly the kind of episode the mature franchise needs more of. Take it
from a New York city resident (for over two decades), “No Good Deed” definitely
reflects the current state of the City. It vividly illustrates the dangers of
plea-bargaining and early parole. Plus, Sam McMurray oozes sleaze as politically
ambitious, leftwing Judge Steve Nelson, while Michael Hyatt inspires contempt
as manipulative defense attorney Vanessa Carter. They will remind you why you
always hated lawyers and politicians.
WEAPONS OF MASS MIGRATION investifates illegal immigration on the ground in Panama's Darien Gap. It finds suspiicous activity on the part of cartels, the UN, and the CCP. The national security implications are serious. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
Somewhere in the multiverse, there must be an alternate Chicago that is a safe,
peaceful city, with high-performing schools and a thriving economy. Obviously,
that is not the Chicago of our universe. It is not Jason Dessen’s Chicago
either, but he is definitely trying to find it again, to reunite with his wife
and son—the ones he knows. Dessen’s unwilling odyssey through the multiverse unfolds
in creator Blake Crouch’s 9-episode Dark Matter, adapted from his original
novel, which premieres today on Apple TV+.
Instead
of becoming Richard Feynman, Dessen married Daniela Vargas and had his moody
teenaged son, Charlie. It was worth it, but sometimes he wonders what might
have been. The other Jason Dessen does not have to wonder. He became a hot shot
physicist who built the “box” that serves as a portal between parallel universes, but he envies our
Dessen’s happy family life. Consequently, he kidnaps the Dessen viewers
identify with, marooning him in his own universe, so he can replace “our” Dessen
with his family.
Despite
his new wealth, Dessen desperately wants to return to his family, once he
figures out why his life is suddenly so radically different. Amanda Lucas, the alternate
Dessen’s lover and co-worker agrees to help him escape their industrialist
boss, but navigating the box is a tricky endeavor. The first few doors they
open nearly lead to disastrous consequences.
The
box is a very cool riff on Schrodinger that sort of symbolically puts those who
enter into super-position, with the help of psychotropic drugs. It is
complicated to explain, but it represents some nifty speculative science
fiction. Unfortunately, the characters are not nearly as interesting. In fact,
they are mostly a rather annoying assembly of dull, joyless neurotics. That
definitely includes Dessen—all of them.
That
human factor definitely matters. It is ironic that we need to make that point
regarding Dark Matter, since that is ostensibly the whole point of the
series. The notable exception would be Jennifer Connelly’s various performances
as the multi-Vargas Dessens. She has the most opportunities to play variations
on her character, which she fully capitalizes on. Each multi-verse Daniela is
recognizably similar, yet distinctive in her own ways.
Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine bring a lot of charm ot THE IDEA OF YOU. They are terrific together, but theyhet zero support from anyone else. CINEMA DAILY US review up here.
The so-called “Agency” is a lot like a Southeast Asian version of the La
Femme Nikita covert organization. Each female assassin has a “guardian,”
who is only supposed to watch over them. In practice, the watchers code-named “Grey
Fox” will have to fight like heck. It sort of goes with the territory when you
work for an assassination agency. They will have to fight each other when a
power struggle splits the Agency. Again, this isn’t so surprising for a group
of killers-for-hire. Whether he likes it or not, the new Grey Fox must look after
his Kittys in Lee Thongkam’s Kitty the Killer, which releases today on
VOD.
It
is a bit of mess when Keng, the Grey Fox, sends Dina, his favorite Kitty, to
retrieve a box from sleazy Wong, before he can sell it to the Japanese wing of
the Agency. Whatever is in that box is a lot like the glowing briefcase in Pulp
Fiction. Keng has his reasons for wanting it, which puts him crosswise with
Ms. Violet, the Agency’s boardroom boss, who unleashes “Nina the Faceless” on
Keng.
The
Grey Fox handily fends off hordes of generic henchmen, but the Faceless Kitty
is too much for him. As he nurses his mortal wounds, Keng carjacks poor
Charlie, a nebbish office worker, forcing him to become the next Grey Fox.
Or
something like that. Honestly, it’s debatable how much of this weird story
really makes any kind of sense. However,
it is easy to get all the heads that get decapitated by katana swords. Charlie’s
shtickiness can be a bit much, but the martial arts beatdowns are brutally spectacular.
Sumret Mueangputt’s fight choreography is wildly cinematic, but also dirty and
gritty.
The original Mercury 7 astronauts were test pilots, because they were
expected to go up and come back down, while somehow holding their spacecrafts
together. In science fiction, crew and passengers often spends millennia in
suspended animation as they travel to distant galaxies. The three-year trip to
Mars and back will be something in between, without the means to communicate with family back on Earth. It is a peculiar challenge that the
psychologists and “human factors” specialists at NASA are trying to prepare for
in Ido Mizrahy’s documentary Space: The Longest Goodbye, which airs
tomorrow on PBS, as part of the current season of Independent Lens.
It
is sort of hard to believe, but they did not really have people doing what Dr.
Al Holland does at NASA, until he started his department in 1994. Of course,
the hard-partying “Right Stuff” generation had their own ways of dealing with
stress (read Tom Wolfe). There was also a deep institutional fear of confiding
personal information that could potentially get astronauts scrubbed from future
missions. However, Holland and his colleagues slowly gained their trust, after
showing a need for their feedback, to help prepare future astronauts for longer
and longer deployments on the International Space Station (ISS).
Mizrahy
and Holland certainly diagnose potential problems, using the experiences of
former astronaut Cady Coleman, her husband, and their son as a case-study.
Hopefully, current astronaut and potential Mars crewmember Kayla Barron can
benefit. The Naval Academy grad and her Army vet husband managed her 176 days
in space, but they realize it will get more complicated when they have
children.
Although
it is still considered the stuff of science fiction, some form of deep sleep is
duly considered as a method of combatting loneliness and isolation (along with virtual
reality). However, Dr. Holland worries about the shock of waking up to three
years of elapsed history. For instance, imagine how jarring it would be to
suddenly learn the Mets won the World Series?
Viewers
can learn a lot from Longest Goodbye. It certainly instills a greater
appreciation for the sacrifices astronauts make. However, the pacing feels a
bit languid. Frankly, Ramachandra Borcar’s politely ambient score arguably does
the film a disservice. It might feel like a good match to the celestial
visuals, but it has a lulling effect. Some stronger, more emotionally resonant melodies
would have better sharpened viewers’ focus.
New Agey influencers might see an old manuscript and think they found the next
Celestine Prophecy. Yet, those who are a little older will be leery of
opening their minds and spirits, for fear of what might enter. You can
disregard old folk all you want, but, by definition, they are survivors. In
contrast, Anya is clearly out of her depth and in great peril right from the
start of Alex Henes & Matthew Merenda’s Mind Body Spirit, which
releases this Tuesday on VOD.
Having
inherited a creepy old house from the grandmother she never met, Anya moved in,
hoping she will finally have the space to find herself, or whatever junky New
Age term she might prefer. Anya aspires to be mindfulness-yoga influencer, but
she lacks the confidence to post her videos. Fortunately, she keeps her camera
rolling when she discovers the secret stairway to her grandmother’s creepy
storeroom of what look like witchcraft supplies (otherwise, we wouldn’t have a
movie to watch).
Her
old Siberian babushka also left Anya a journal, which includes a ritual the would-be
yoga guru assumes will recenter the spirit in the body. Of course, any horror
fan immediately suspects [currently] what this ritual is actually intended for.
Anya presumes her mother severed all connections with her grandmother, because
of some prejudice against her supposedly heightened spirituality, but we know
better—especially since we can sometimes see the old spectral crone skulking in
the background, unnoticed by Anya.
Probably
the best way to watch Mind Body Spirit would be with a mindfulness lifestyle
follower, who has no idea what is coming. Henes and Merenda create a good deal
of tension and the details surrounding the Baba Yagi-like grandma are
definitely creepy. The Russian cultural context greatly distinguishes Mind
Body Spirit from other similarly occult films. However, Henes and Merenda often
break the rules of the found footage subgenre, frequently having the camera move
seemingly of its own accord, even into different rooms. It is not Grandma
moving the camera either. I don’t want to be the found footage cop, but if you
are going to do something, do it the right way.
Indeed,
it is clear Henes and Merenda are trying to replicate the online viewing experience,
because they periodically replicate the “buffering” effect and interrupt the
action with three satirical commercials—two of which featuring “Kenzi Fit,” Anya’s
vastly more successful frienemy influencer.
Frankly,
those phony commercials are so perfectly on-the-money believable, they will
probably anger a lot of turmeric-tea drinking New Age posers. There is a lot of
sly commentary shoehorned into an impressively staged horror movie. Despite
massively “cheating” in the execution of their found footage concept, the co-directors
cleverly stage-managed the claustrophobic location, adroitly ushering the
limited cast into and out of the camera’s field of vision, during several nifty
tracking shots.
Never refer to a bandoneon as an accordion. You’d be barred from entering
Argentina. The smaller bellows instrument makes every melody sound beautiful
and sad. Unfortunately, nothing is sadder than a depression, which had been the
reality of the Argentinean economy for three years and counting in late 2001. Julio
Farber has had enough, so he is immigrating to Germany with his mother and
daughter. However, he has yet to break the bad news to his tango band. Despite
the chaos of the Argentinazo riots, saying goodbye is hard to do in German Kral’s
Adios Buenos Aires, which is now playing in New York.
Farber
and his bandmates love the music, but they live off their day jobs. Their last
gig only earned them a dozen empanadas, but since this is Argentina, at least
they were probably delicious empanadas. After their latest vocalist quits, they
try to recruit the legendary but long-retired Ricardo Tortorella as his
replacement. He turns them down unequivocally when they visit his nursing home,
but then arrives right on time for their first rehearsal.
Farber
is hoping to liquid his assets quickly, including the car a rookie cab driver soon
runs off the road, into an embankment. Of course, when Farber tracks down
Mariela Martinez through her company, she admits she is uninsured. However, he
allows her to pay for the damages in installments, once he recognizes how hard
she works for her young deaf son. In the meantime, Martinez agrees to chauffeur
Farber and his bandmates to all their gigs, so she soon gets to know them all
quite well.
Indeed,
meeting the band’s prickly personalities is one of the film’s greatest
pleasures. The piano player, Carlos Acosta, is obsessed with numbers in a way
that often gives rise to compulsive gambling. Tito Godoy is the bass player and
neighborhood mechanic, who has cannibalized more parts from Farber’s wrecked
car than he has fixed. Atilio Fernandez is a retired history professor, whose
leftist sensibilities are inflamed by the economic crisis, even though it was
the Peronistas and their ilk that got the country in its current mess.
Kral
has a keen affinity for tango, having previously helmed the documentary, Our Last Tango. However, the film also vividly recreates the anarchy and
anxiety of the Argentinazo era. Savvy viewers will be expecting the government’s
notoriously draconian limits on bank withdrawals, so every time Farber deposits
the proceeds from the sale of his assets, the pit in their stomachs will
tighten. Watching the mayhem that plays out in the banks and on the streets
helps explain why Argentina just elected Javier Milei, arguably the most
libertarian head of state ever. Considering what the Peronistas and their
various splinter parties have wrought, who wouldn’t want to try something
completely different?
Yet,
Kral quite deftly balances the real-life political and economic disorder with
the music and the bittersweet romantic comedy. The mutual attraction that blossoms
between Martinez and Farber is never driven by cute contrivances. More than
anything, their shared experiences as single parents lead to sympathy and
understanding.
Every
significant role is perfectly cast, starting with the romantic leads, Diego
Cremonesi and Marina Bellati, who develop a sweetly shy and believably awkward
chemistry together. Mario Alarcon plays the great Tortorella with elegant
dignity and poignant sadness. Carlos Portaluppi, Rafael Spregelburd, and Manuel
Vicente are colorfully crusty as Farber’s bandmates. They get a lot of laughs
kvetching, but there is a good deal of wisdom in their banter. They also look
convincing holding their instruments. That is especially true for Cremonesi wiedling the bandoneon.
It is really just glorified solitaire, but we like to pretend it means
something. Evidently, tarot fortune telling is related to zodiac astrology—a fact
that should diminish rather bolster its credibility. When asked, my college
astronomy professor used to start his answers with: “if you know anything about
astrology, and I really hope you don’t…” Maybe he was more right than he
realized. Since this is a horror movie, there really is something to tarot,
something terribly sinister. As you might, a late-night session with the cards
has fatal consequences in co-director-screenwriters Spenser Cohen & Anna
Halberg’s Tarot, which opens today nationwide.
Like
most college students, Haley and her friends are drinking like fish during
their final Airbnb getaway before finals. It is a little awkward since she just
dumped Grant, whom everyone assumed she would marry. While hoping to find a
hidden liquor cabinet, they stumble across a cache of astrologic artefacts.
Seeing an ominous hand-painted deck of tarot cards, they push and prod Haley,
an amateur tarot reader, into telling their fortunes. She is reluctant, because
readers are only supposed to use their own deck, but hey, what could possibly go
wrong?
Obviously,
those ratty, macabre cards are very different. For one thing, they actually work,
predicting her friends’ futures in lethally ironic ways. At first, the deaths resemble
those in Final Destination, before we see it is really the demonic figures
from the tarot cards that are stalking them. The internet leads Haley to dodgy
astrologist Alma Astryn, who is indeed familiar with the nasty tarot deck. She
barely survived her first encounter with it, because she never read her own
fortune, unlike Haley. Astryn has been
chasing those cards ever since.
Tarot
is
not a classic horror movie by any stretch, but it is energetically executed. In
many ways, it feels like a throwback to the late 1990s-early 2000s post-Scream
era of films, very much in the tradition of Final Destination. Think
of all those movies with four hot teens and their goofball friend posing like
models on the poster. In this case, Jacob Batalon plays schlubby Paxton, who is
a lot like Reginald the Vampire.
Batalon
does his usual schtick, but Harriet Slater and Adain Bradley are surprisingly charismatic
elevating the under-written characters of Haley and Grant. Plus, Olwen Fouere,
who is quickly becoming the new Lin Shaye, brings reliable weirdness as Astryn.
Peacock's THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ is a poignant love story, but it also provides remedial Holocaust education, at a time when college students desperately need it. EPOCH TIMES exclusive review up here.
Don Lee keeps delivering what fans want in THE ROUNDUP: PUNISHMENT, the entertaining new film in the blockbuster Korean ROUNDUP franchise, the most reliable action franchise still cranking out sequels. He hits hard. CINEMA DAILY US exclusive review up here.
Many movies depict CIA officers as the bad guys, but in the real world,
several CIA station chiefs have been assassinated while serving their country.
Tragically, Farrah Malloy will be the next to die in the line of duty. However,
her widowed husband is also a CIA officer, with the know-how to find her killers and extract
retribution in Jesse V. Johnson’s Chief of Station, which releases
tomorrow in theaters and on-demand.
Ben
Malloy just ran circles around the FSB (the former KGB) intercepting a courier drop on the
streets of Budapest, where his wife is Chief of Station. Then he met her for
their anniversary, but it was interrupted by an explosion. Supposedly, it was a
gas leak, but Malloy soon suspects otherwise. Since the agency’s general
inspector clearly has it in for him, Malloy only trusts Dez, his wife’s former
colleague in the cyber division, with his findings.
Technically,
he also trusts Nick, who will also soon start working in agency IT, but Malloy
does not want him involved. Of course, the mysterious terrorists will
inevitably target the son to get to the father.
Much
like Aaron Eckhart’s last CIA movie, The Bricklayer, Chief of Station
starts with a promising premise, but quickly reverts to standard issue payback
VOD action. In this case, Chief is worse, because it chickens out quite
cowardly, by making the FSB “friendly” rivals rather than the true bad guys.
Just ask Ukraine how the FSB really conducts their business. This is not the
mid-1990s. Audiences are craving Russian and CCP Chinese villains, because they
want to finally see payback for their oppressive crimes. Instead, the producers
apparently cared more about sales in some of most despotic territories on
earth.
It
is a shame, because Eckhart has the perfect cerebral grittiness for a
vengeance-seeking CIA officer like Malloy. Olga Kurylenko has instant action
credibility Krystyna Kowerski, an agent Malloy’s wife used to handle. However,
screenwriter George Mahaffey literally drops her into the film from out of
nowhere, after a full hour of Malloy lone-wolfing, just in time to save his
butt.
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, was quite familiar with John Carradine’s work. She
featured several of his less prestigious “films” on Movie Macabre (to be
fair, The Monster Club isn’t so bad). Fortunately, he probably never
noticed or cared, whereas Elvira never embarrassed easily. Whether there was
tension or not, they both guest-starred on “October the 31st,” one
of two Halloween episodes of The Fall Guy, which mostly likely will not
be covered in the new movie reboot—but it screens through May 5th at the Paley Center.
In
the “31st,” Seavers and his proteges, Jody Banks and Howie Munson,
are working on a horror movie so schlocky, it even mortifies its star, Elvira. However,
she sees a silver lining in the manly slab of masculinity that is Colt Seavers.
Throughout the episode, she makes it clear she has one thing in mind, with
dialogue so suggestive, it is almost single entendre.
The
production contracted to shoot on-location in the spooky Deauville mansion,
because the old couple desperately needs the money. Nevertheless, grumpy old
Preston Deauville remains adamantly opposed to their presence, because he worries
someone might discover his secret. His opinion does not change, even after his
untimely death. In fact, Munson and Banks worry Deauville is haunting the production
from beyond the grave.
The
”31st” holds the distinction for featuring the only on-camera
appearance of the entire Carradine acting family together in one scene, when the
three Carradine brothers play servants old man Deauville reluctantly lays-off. The
senior Carradine is just as regally hammy as fans would hope playing Deauville.
However,
the Elvira and Colt show is what drives this episode. Frankly, it is surprisingly
they got away with all the wink-wink naughtiness in early 1980s primetime. Of
course, Cassandra Peterson was delighted. Reportedly, she was frustrated when producers
forced her to tone her Elvira persona when she previously guested on network
series. In contrast, creator Glen A. Larson and episode writer Samm Egan let
Elvira be Elvira. That led to Egan getting the gig writing Elvira: Mistress
of the Dark, the 1988 feature, and Elvira returning to The Fall Guy the
next year, in “October the 32nd.”
In Wolf Hall, Thomas Cromwell is the protagonist, but he is the bad guy in A
Man for All Seasons. Which is more accurate? Matthew Shardlake would admit
it is rather complicated, if you asked him privately. Of course, he would publicly
proclaim the righteousness of Henry VIII’s powerful strategist, since the
lawyer often serves as Cromwell’s unofficial investigator. Ostensibly, his
latest assignment is a murder investigation in a not so reformist monastery,
but his real job will be convincing the abbot to relinquish St. Donatus’s
property to the Crown. Yet, the lawyer’s stubborn desire for genuine justice
leads to danger in the four-part Shardlake, which premieres today on
Hulu.
Shardlake
is constantly underestimated, due to his spinal curvature, but Cromwell’s cocky
lieutenant, Jack Barak, slowly learns better while accompanying the lawyer to
St. Donatus. Somewhat awkwardly, Shardlake must sleuth out the killer of his
predecessor, who was auditing the monastery on Cromwell’s behalf. His head was
cleanly decapitated, but the murder weapon is missing.
Naturally,
Shardlake and Barak get a frosty reception from Abbot Fabian and his Brothers
because they fully understand their true purpose at the monastery. Relations
grow even more testy when Shardlake openly rebukes the monks for cruelly
bullying Simon Whelplay, a scrawny novice. Understandably, Shardlake identifies
with the malnourished monk in training, so the subsequent murder of Whelplay further
stokes his outrage.
Shardlake
is
not at the level of The Name of the Rose, even though it clearly aspires
to be. However, it is several cuts above the average episode of Cadfael.
Series director Justin Chadwick skillfully mines the gothic setting for
atmospheric chills. Stephen Butchard’s adaptation of C.J. Sansom’s novel retains
all juicy English Reformational politics, including the execution of Anne
Boleyn, which plays a pivotal role in the mystery.
To
the producers’ credit, they walked the walk, as well as talked the talk, by
casting Arthur Hughes (a thesp with radial dysplasia) as Shardlake. Beyond
issues of authenticity, Hughes eloquently expresses the lawyer’s passion for
justice and contempt for hypocrisy.
Frankly,
Anthony Boyle (in his third major series this quarter, following Manhunt and
Masters of the Air) looks and sounds rather miscast as the supposedly
swaggering Barak. However, Sean Bean is suitably gruff and imperious as Cromwell.
Yes, he lives past the first episode, but he disappears for most of series,
while the drama centers on St. Donatus.